A Detailed Guide to the Latest Planting Time and Methods for Daylily

Daylily is a vegetable grown specifically for its flowers, and there is a saying that goes “you've waited so long the daylily has gone cold.” In fact, daylily is generally eaten cold-tossed to bring out more flavor, and it shows up when you eat pickles. When daylily blooms it is especially beautiful, and a large planting of daylily makes a gorgeous sight, plus its nutritional value and medicinal value are both relatively high, so today let's learn about the planting time and planting methods for daylily.

Planting Time

Daylily is still a seasonal vegetable on the market, and it is only produced in certain seasons. The production period for daylily is generally from June to August. Daylily can generally be planted in two seasons, so spring and autumn are the normal planting times for daylily. Its growth period is divided into seven stages: the sprouting stage, the leaf-unfolding stage, the bolting stage, the flowering stage, the leaf-withering stage, the leaf-unfolding stage of the following year, and the dormant stage. This also shows that planting daylily allows harvesting to continue for several years, which is very economical.

Planting Methods

1. Site selection and land preparation

Daylily's requirements for soil are not very strict; its ability to resist poor soil and drought is extremely strong, and its lifespan is relatively long, generally growing for five to eight years, so it is quite suitable for being planted alone on hillsides, mountain land and similar areas. But if it can be planted in places with relatively loose and fertile soil, it will grow better, the yield will also be higher, and at the same time its useful life can be extended. When preparing the land, try to plow as deep as possible, as this can help avoid the threat of some pests and diseases and can also prevent lodging.

2. Planting methods

There are two ways to plant daylily. The first is to raise seedlings by sowing seeds, putting daylily seeds into a seedbed to grow seedlings, and transplanting once the seedlings have grown. However, this method has two drawbacks: the yield is not high and the quality is not good, and secondly, after planting it does not flower until the third year and only reaches normal yield in the fourth year, so the first method is generally not recommended. The second method is propagation by division, where after harvesting daylily in autumn or after dormancy, the young roots newly grown from the old plants are separated and planted, so that after planting they can flower and be harvested the following year, making it much more efficient. If you do not have old plants, you can also buy some from others.

3. Field management

Daylily should be planted at a reasonable density, generally with a spacing of 35 to 40 cm per plant. The most suitable temperature for daylily growth is around 15 to 20 degrees, so temperature regulation is needed during its flowering period, which can promote flowering and improve quality and yield. The most important thing for daylily is fertilizer management; generally we apply fertilizer three times. The first application is at sprouting, using a mixed fertilizer of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and urea to promote sprouting and shorten the sprouting period. The second application generally uses urea and potassium fertilizer to promote new branch growth. The last application is at flowering, which helps shorten the flowering period for harvesting.

4. Disease prevention

Daylily has relatively few diseases; sometimes aphids appear, or leaf spot disease. So when few aphids are found, they can be removed by hand, and when there are many, dimethoate emulsifiable concentrate should be sprayed, and no harvesting can be done within half a month after spraying. As for leaf spot disease, chlorothalonil is generally enough.

5. Harvesting and processing

Daylily generally blooms at night, so harvesting is usually done every morning; once noon comes, it has already withered. If rainy weather occurs, harvest as early as possible, a day ahead of time, because at that time it grows very fast, and if you still follow the usual schedule it will be useless. After harvesting, the daylily needs to be processed; generally it is first steamed dry, then sun-dried, and finally packed up.